The Real Jerk Restaurant

Tried Real Jerk for the first time this past week and it will be our last. Our goat stew roti was a good large serving with lots of meat, however, it tasted very gamey and the roti shell was very dry. We also ordered pepper shrimp which was mainly peppered with black pepper, it was quite underwhelming. Our favourite thing was probably the beef patty which was likely from a frozen box but at least tasted decent.

The place is aesthetically pleasing from the outside. However, once you get in, they are serving dry and tasteless chicken. It's sad the place is called the Real Jerk because that's definitely not jerk chicken they're serving. Wish I would have read the reviews before stopping by.
I did enjoy the music.

This redturant is notorious for terrible service slow motion and low quality food. For years no I am under whelmed more and more each time I go here. The prices have increased and the quality and service continue to decrease. Say goodbye to a returning customer who spends over 50$ each time I order.

First time here and whoa it was incredible! Highly recommend the ribs and dumplings. Massive portion for a reasonable price.

We had visited this restaurant many times before Covid but seems things have slipped. We had a table of 9 sept 3. The bathrooms were DISGUSTING. Staff was unprofessional. Pattie was one of the appetizers came cold when meal almost done. Barely any meat on oxtail just bone with gravy. The roti was just bone too. One of our family members never received his meal. This was not money well spent and we will certainly not go back. We tried to support our own but.

I went there with my son for karaoke he actually ate and the food looked and tasted amazing the karaoke was a lot of fun the host was very good and a lot of different people got up to sing so the atmosphere was great

Brought my son for his birthday dinner and I must say if I could give less than 1 star I would. The worst service and food I have ever gotten from here. I used to go when they were at broadview and queen and now traveled many times from Kingston road and lawrence because the food has always been amazing so I don't know what happened today. From the moment I walked in the service was sub par, I have never in all my visits had food as bad as today. My son was a bit upset because normally this place rocks. Not so much today. I am one very unhappy customer and can't say I will be returning any time soon.

Huge portions, awesome vibe, authentic Jamaican food, old school reggae playing in the background, what more can you ask for? A taste of Jamaica. Highly recommended.

Food wasn't bad, but customer service was inexistente. Only 1 girl serving the tables while the others were chatting.
Slowest services ever.

This past Saturday I ordered lunch via Skip. I ordered a Jerk pork Dinner and a Goat curry roti. Total with tip $40.

I waited patiently for 1 1/2 hours for delivery. The guy delivered and left. He delivered one container of Goat curry and rice, along with a Cola Champagne drink! (BTW it was a handful of rice and a measly couple pieces of BONY Goat curry not worth more than $7.99.)

I immediately called the restaurant and the man I spoke with had NO/ZERO idea of what I was enquiring about. He couldn't find my order-even after repeating my Order # to him. I told him how disappointed I was and clearly I received someone else's order by mistake. The whole ordeal was frustrating and a mess. This has never happened to me before. All he kept saying was " it was a Skip mistake" suggesting I contact them which naturally I was going to do. I did and got my original order refunded.

So after 2 hours of stress and nothing but stress I ended up with some poor soul's LOST Goat curry and rice and a Cola. Twas not the day for my Jerk Pork and Goat roti tho-Lawd knows ah who yawd the two of them ended up in! But considering the miniature portion size of the Goat and Rice that was mistakenly delivered, perhaps it was all a blessing in disguise.

Beware of them order 'glitches' and The Real Jerk (Gerrard St. East). Stressful. Nothing but stress.

Ordered takeout straight from the restaurant. The waitress didn’t exactly have the best customer service, she was cold and unfriendly. It would’ve been great if she told us how long we had to wait for our order to be ready but no, we sat on the side for 40 minutes until she said “Your order’s ready”. It was an extremely busy Monday night, there were a gazillion takeouts they had to deal with and a few dine-ins.

Food was alright, not the best jerk chicken wings I’ve ever tasted. I’ve had better ones quite frankly. The chicken was dry and may need a little more spice to give it more of a kick. The rice and beans were also very dry. Not sure if I’ll be back again.

Fresh tender meat with great flavour.
Friendly pricing, including drinks.
Large portions.
Free parking.

What more could one ask for in Toronto?

Food was decent, didn’t make up for the rude staff though, so much attitude not coming back when they learn how to fix their customer service and be more friendly.

We were excited to try The Real Jerk after many years. Food wise, it started well, the pepper shrimp and cod fritters were fresh and liked by everyone at the table. The mains were a bit more mixed. The jerk chicken, oxtail, and ribs all felt a bit generic. Fine, enjoyable, but not that remarkable. Escavich fish had good flavour. Rice and peas and coleslaw sides were much better than the mains. Bigger issue was exceptional slowness. Was almost an hour and a half from arrival to food service. Side plates and cutlery took 15 minutes while appetizers languished on the table. Etc. And while it's not a fundamentally expensive place, dinner for four with a drink each (only two alcoholic) clocked in at almost $150 after tax and tip. Just too much for what you're getting, comparable to what you can get elsewhere, even though it was, as stated, not bad at all.

This place was horrendous. Save your time and money because I have been to 6 different jerk spots and this is by far the worst one I have ever tried.
1/4 jerk chicken dinner was fry and bland. Had no jerk taste whatsoever and it was just dry roasted chicken.
I asked for EXTRA sauce and they put 1 teaspoon full of sauce in a huge container of stale rice and dry chicken.

Rice was completely stale. Both rice and plantain tasted cold and tasted like it’s been sitting for a while.

DO NOT GO TO THIS PLACE. ITS A RIPOFF

This place is great and it's not at the same time. I love the curry chicken and I get it all the time. But there's times when I order other things and they just don't seem to have the same passion behind it. If I order dumplings with oxtail gravy the gravy is 90% oil.the first time I got it it was incredible, I told people about it and when I order it for them to try it's never the same. When I go back to ask about it they give me the cold shoulder. Really unfortunate but il be sticking with the roti from now on. Great roti atleast!

Something went terribly wrong with my jerk pork order last weekend. It didn't taste anything like it used to, and there was some kind of sauce on it. I hope this was a temporary glitch.

Stick to the curries and stew. Jerk pork was mediocre, surprising as their other dishes are delicious!

So I give this place 1 star at Carlaw avenue and Gerrard st east
My aunt scooter died outside this place trying to get home she plug her scooter in the outlet and the manager came out and kept unplugging it on her telling her she needs to buy food. So an elderly women 65 years old trying to get home was stuck out front of this store for over an hour at 8: 30pm at night there was no way that she could push her scooter home it's too heavy she lives at greenwood and danforth all uphill. She eventually she got a hold of my sister to go help get her home.
Pretty sad to not help an 65 year old elderly person to get home.e by not letting her scooter charge for 30mins to an hour so she can get home

The manager and staff should be very ashamed of themselves but now one has to Wonder if they would have done the same if it was someone they knew very dissapoint not helping a elderly woman

I was disappointed. I was so hungry after a 14 hour day that I stopped to order a jerked pork meal to go. The rice and peas (red beans & rice) was not up to scratch, but the serving portion was adequate (I reserve a second star for the serving size specifically, hence 2 stars not 1). However, by far the jerked pork was no good. It smelled really bad as if they used fake smoke chips with a toxic fire accelerant and maybe something even worse. I made a cardinal sin of eating—despite those red flags and also low service quality, I started to eat because it was 14hrs since my last meal and waiting 25 minutes for the food made that pang worse.
It was seasoned alright but had a nasty lingering aftertaste that has apparently scarred my sensory papillae because a week later, I swear whenever my mind is quiet, I can still taste it in my mouth. Not funny. I also had a serious belly ache later. I hope it was an off night with jerked pork for them, but I will not be going back to find out.

I've been wanting to try this place for a long time and I have to say I was extremely disappointed.
1) 1/4 jerk chicken dinner: The jerk chicken didn't really taste like jerk - it was more like a bland roasted chicken, no sense of jerk spices.
2) roti chicken dinner - dry roti with almost crumbly flour like layer between the layers. Not very appetising. The chicken mix inside was also pretty dry, no real sauces. The chicken was pretty bland in this too.
The one thing I'll say is the portions were generous, but it didn't matter because we didn't want to finish our meals unfortunately.
3) the cod fritters were the only saving grace. The sauce it came with was really flavourful and tangy. The fritters were nice and balanced, and the consistency was almost like a dumpling - very pleasant!
Unfortunately it did not make up for the rest of the dinner being so below average.

Definitely overhyped and mediocre. I've had better Carribean food elsewhere. Jerk chicken and jerk wings were dry. Cod fritters had barely any fish in it, soup, beef patty, coleslaw and the guava drink were good.

Showed up at 7 to dine in and we were almost late for an 11pm movie. The service was tragically slow. I think they were understaffed. Take out orders clearly took priority over us.

The food is amazing. The 'side order' of chicken curry is enormous. Watch out.

They have a good selection of rum at the bar.

Decent food and decent portions. Wait time was a little longer than what I was told. Many better places for Jerk Chicken and rice in the city. But I did like that they had a Jerk Chicken and Oxtail combo.

I was disappointed in the food. Haven't been there in over 2 years and it seems to have changed. No taste wont going back. Drinks were ok but not worth the drive.

If I could give this place zero stars, I absolutely would. We got there at 8: 35ish. We were told to wait for 10 odd minutes for a table but there was an available table on the patio this whole time. After waiting the full 10 minutes we were seated at that same empty table that no one had touched. (Red flag 1)

Thereafter it took the server about 15 minutes to come by and give us water and by that time we had our order ready (red flag 2). We placed it at 9pm. We kept waiting for the food to arrive and kept waiting and waiting and waiting for the next ONE HOUR AND FIFTEEN minutes (red flag 3). In this period every other table seated was asked how they were doing and that the food was coming. My friend and I were completely ignored, probably because we were Indian (Red flag 4). While we wait for our food, we can see uber and ritual orders being fulfilled. It’s like the restaurant decided to place their patrons second to their online orders (red flag 5).

When we do finally get our food, it’s the WORST jerk chicken I’ve had. It’s bone dry and had no flavour. I could make better jerk chicken and I don’t even know how to. I took two bites and set it aside. The chicken roti was stuffed with more potatoes than chicken and the only flavour was chillies. Save yourself time, money and patience and SKIP this place.

The food here is actually good and tastes Caribbean unlike many others I've tried. I could taste the spice in all the dishes we chose. We had jerked chicken, curried goat roti, jerked pork and fried dumplings. The staff was really nice and the restaurant was clean. You also had the option for patio dining. I would recommend!

Came here on the go to catch up with a friend and stayed longer then expected. To start we were seated outside on their patio. Set up was great as we were separated far enough from other parties but close enough to the bustling streets. Order the Jerk chicken meal and the the lamb roti. If you haven’t been you have to go because these guys know how to throw down, along with the amazing food was excellent service to compliment great work.

I tried their oxtail and jerk chicken and it was pretty good. The price was reasonable and the service was great. I definitely recommend this place to people who are craving for Jamaican food.

So I ordered goat and got bones with shredded meat. You let me know if would you eat this or throw it away. I can't eat this, that's for sure. Chef must be real miserable to serve me this.

Ordered curry goat it was so bad like literally more bone then meat. The meat was shredded apart I am so disgusted that they would pass the slop off as food I guess The chef was in a bad mood my food look like someone scrapped it olfrom a burnt pot of food and thrown in a container OVERAL THE CONSISTENCY/QUAlITY OF THIS RESTAURANT IS TERRIBLE

We have dined in this restaurant before COVID on multiple occasions and we never had a problem, we recently did a take out order because they were only open patio and when we took the food home, it wasn't the same but we gave them another try.

We went in and did dine in inside, it wasn't' busy, there was not more then 3 tables occupied outside and 3 inside. We waited for 5 mins to be seated because there was no on in the front and when someone did came they we conversating with another employee close to the kitchen. We eventually got seated and our waitress soon after came, we already knew what we wanted to order so we did. We asked for 2 patties and she stated they didn't have any ready it would take at least 20 mins, we were okay with that, we asked her to bring it once it is ready. We continued ordering our main's. We ordered a 1/4 jerk chicken and curry goat. We waited and waited, 20 mins passed and we didn't get any food, not the main or patties. When the waitress came around she stated our food was being plated and gave us more water, after that we waited another 25 mins. At this point we were feed up, hungry and all we had was water. I did notice they were prioritizing the takeout section more, Ive seen multiple takeout bags being brought to the front and no one in the dinning room was being served any food. At one point they were so disorganized and confused a table left after they paid for their meals and the plates were left for 10 mins before someone decided to clean the table. They had to confirm with 3 different people if the customers were done and paid for so they can take the plates away and clean the table. When we were leaving i did let someone know we were leaving and the look on his face showed us this wasn't the first time this has happened and the kitchen is not working up to par. They also need to renovate their furniture, the table we were sitting at was not even. It kept tipping over to the side. It is such a disappointment that there is no more care in the service or food

Decided to come here for dinner before my bachelorette party with my bridesmaids. The food was phenomenal however the service was far from that. Our server Michelle lacked communication and transparency. We waited 30 mins to be greeted by our server, 30 mins for drinks and water and waited 2 hours for our food and only 4/8 people ate while the other 4 were still waiting for their meals. We arrived at 9: 15 PM, first round of dinners didn’t come out until 11: 15 PM. Michelle didn’t once apologize for the wait times or for her lack of customer service. She blamed the kitchen instead of taking accountability for her very poor service. Truthfully this was the worst restaurant experience my friends and I ever had and we will never be coming back or recommending anyone to dine in at this location. Would recommend ordering for takeout. Unfortunately our night was ruined and because we spent hours waiting around, we didn’t follow through with our evening plans after dinner.

Best Stewed Chicken hands down. The service was amazing. It was so good I got another order to take home, which 1.5 hours away. For sure will be back

I've been coming to this restaurant for years, but honestly, the service has been on a decline. I came in on August 1,2021, and waited to be seated, which took a while. We then got settled down and ordered the Curry Chicken and a Quarter Jerk Chicken with two patties. The waitress told us the patties would take 20 mins, so we told her it was okay to wait for them after the meal. Mind you; this is an appetizer. We waited there for 50mins for food and nothing! The waitress told us it was being plated, and the food still hadn't come after 10 minutes of saying that. I understand that it was busy, but 50 minutes was ridiculous. They have probably lost me as a repeat customer as they didn't even care. We were more full off the water than the actual food that never came. Disorganize and slow wouldn't suggest this restaurant unless it's empty.

They lost our business that day; we had to go to another restaurant to eat. Sad as we we were ready to order more food to go.

Good food but not friendly service though seems not busy at that time.
There are some similar food and better service at other restaurants.

Great option for tasty caribbean food. They have lots of options on the menu for everyone and they are located on the east side of the Toronto downtown.

Great location device a bit slow, seamed like the cater to Uber and door dash orders more than the people in the restaurant

The place to order a wonderlicious jerky wings. They are so yummy, you can get away of it. I order mine for a delivery and the service is lit. The food is well packaged and still warm when it reaches you. Drake didn’t lie … it is a real work things.

Waited 45 minutes and got mixed service. One server was sweet and friendly, the other seemed to hate her job and snarled at us twice. We left without eating after waiting for over an hour. So no comment on the food yet️

First & last time to visit

We arrived at 6pm today and the bar tender was nice to serve us, we order before we sat down, another server was then came on duty, she cam to ask us if we had ordered, we said yes, she then turn around and never came back, we had no drink and no service.

45 minutes went by, food cam for people came much later than us, by no food or service for us, when we inquired, we were told it will be another 10-15 minutes, we then said we will have to leave, no one bother to come to ask us why

Is our choice to pick this restaurant, as we have heard so much good thing about it, but boy were we disappointed

We surely will not be back again for this type of service

Food is excellent very tasty and well presented, prices are good, staff is very nice and friendly. You try it you adopt it.

I had waited to be recognized as a patron in the restaurant on the patio for 25 minutes. I have a disability so therefore I have a service animal. I had asked for the table to be wiped and the chairs to be wiped because there was rain. The server looked at me like I was asking her to do some thing that was totally against what she should be doing. We weren’t even offered water. I told her that I had papers proving that this was a service animal and she told me that I would have to have my animal sit in the parking lot. This is illegal. The service we were never served food nor even water the music that was blaring so loud that we couldn’t even hear ourselves think. The whole environment was absolutely the worst experience I’ve ever had. Our server and the other patrons that were sitting around us was aggressive and discriminatory. Never will I ever visit this establishment again. If you’re looking for a wonderful place to dine I’m sure there are other places to go.

Loved it. Everything from the curry to the jerk chicken to the rice and peas. Will definitely be coming back for a LOT more.

The food is never disappointing. They make the best homemade sorrel n' rum! I recommend the drink called Wukkitup.especially in the summer it's the perfect drink to help you cool off!

Didn't like their pepper shrimp. Was not like the ones I've tried in other places. My main, curry chicken on rice and peas, lacked flavor.

This place is one of my top 3 places to eat Caribbean food. Next one on the list is Kitchen Ling in Scarborough 885 Progress Ave.

Not even on my off day could I make chicken soup this awful. It gives Jamaican food a bad name. The price is also way too high for such tragedy.

Great food. 5/5

The staff were not professional.
A pair acted like costumers weren't waiting for them, choose to talk about their weekend instead of taking orders.

I've eaten here a handful of times and the food is fairly decent afterall they have been around for quite sometime so they should know what they're doing.
I've had the coconut rundown (delicious), the oxtail (also delish), and my all-time favorite banana fritters (secretly I think the staff hate me because of the fact I'll just order the fritters and nothing else and often.maybe too often so if they do I get it).
But a word of caution to those that are not into spicy foods stay away from the real jerk spice itself, I've tried it and it was way too spicy quite frankly I couldn't finish my meal it was too spicy. Spicy's fine but when it prevents you from tasting any of the other flavors it becomes overkill. That's just my humble opinion.
If you're in the area or you're in the mood for some real jamaican food (no pun intended) give them a shot you won't be disappointed.